I never would have suspected that the Game Boy version of an early arcade classic would be something that I could call “ahead of its time”. Early portable games were often just heavily stripped-down ports, and even the standalone titles usually felt like they would be too shallow for a wider release, but Donkey Kong actually fulfilled the potential of the format. It’s important for portable games to be something you can pick up and put down easily, and unlike many Game Boy titles, this one delineates its content in a way that makes this work. Levels are kept to bite-sized, focused challenges, and you’re actually allowed to save at any time, a rarity for games of that era. It also doesn’t feel like a stripped-down experience in the slightest, constantly introducing more challenges, mechanics, and levels long after players think they’ve seen everything. A good example of this is in the title itself, with players being slightly misled about what the game even is. You start out playing a fairly direct replication of the arcade game, but after completing the original four levels, the presentation shifts to a new style, and you’re given an entire new world of content. You might expect more levels of standard Donkey Kong, but you get puzzles and item usage akin to Mario 2, and later on you’re introduced to the vine climbing from Donkey Kong Junior. Then, you get platforming challenges that require the sort of acrobatic maneuvers associated with Mario 64, like Mario’s backflip and an early version of the triple jump. It’s almost strange how a game from 1994 was ahead of the curve in pretty much every respect, with its mobile-friendly presentation, the way it keeps rewarding players with new stuff, and the smoothness of Mario’s control, which come together to eclipse Nintendo’s modern portable efforts like Super Mario Run. Really, the only part that keeps this game from being a favorite is how the ideas dry up towards the end, with originality and clever puzzling being taken over by platforming challenges that throw out the same old blowing wind and slippery ice that you've seen a million times before. Even with those little issues though, I can still easily recommend it, both for its forward-thinking sensibilities, and its status as a vastly underappreciated part of the Mario canon.

Addendum: I played this game thanks to the recommendations of users BeachEpisode and Mellorine, so they get a special shoutout. Also, I decided to play the original beforehand to ensure I had the full context and ended up enjoying it too, so they each get two gold stars.
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